Tillie
Page 2
to the U at dusk.
When we alighted from the car in front of the boarding house in whichMallory and I stayed, we were still a little shaky over our narrowescape. We stood on the sidewalk by the car for a moment trying todecide whether to go up to my room, to Mallory's or down the street ablock to Jud's house. We compromised on Pokey's Malt Shop at the cornerand finally settled with a sigh of relief in a booth way at the back.
With a round of black coffee in front of us we settled down to business.Nothing less than a space ship would do. Here in our hands, or ratherout in my car, we had the secret of untold power. With that little hunkof tellecarbon and a certain amount of concentration on it we couldtravel to Mars and back like nothing flat. During summer vacation forthe last two years Mallory and I had worked in the shipyards and gainedpractical experience in welding, boilermaking and sheetmetal work. Thetwo of us could build a small space ship by ourselves. All that would benecessary would be to make it airtight, with enough insulation to keepour heat from radiating into space. The rest of the problem involvedonly ordering stuff from catalogues. Carbon dioxide absorbers, tanks ofoxygen, food, various instruments, and so on. That would be Jud's work.
Just as we were finishing our coffees, Lahoma Rice, the secretary in theDean's office, came in and discovered us. Mallory and I had been more orless competing for her affections for some time. It was the only thingthat had ever come between us in our years at college together and theyears since then. We both tried to keep it on a friendly basis, butunderneath it had become pretty serious.
When we saw her coming Jud whispered quickly, "Keep quiet about all thisin front of her. We don't want anybody to know about our amazingdiscovery at this early date."
Coming over, she slid into the booth beside Jud and flashed a smile atme and Mallory.
"Well, what's all the hush-hush about?"
"Oh, nothing," answered Mallory, looking completely unconcerned.
"Ha, ha. That's right. Absolutely nothing at all," I echoed, to make itmore convincing. But somehow it didn't sound quite as convincing as Ihad intended. Even I noticed that at once, and a secret dangled beforethe nose of a woman. It awoke in her an undefeatable urge. Before wecould rally our forces she was in on the secret and determined to gowith us when we went to Mars.
"But Lahoma," Mallory desperately pleaded, "you don't need to comealong. I'll be all right."
"I wasn't thinking of you," Lahoma retorted icily, and although she didnot look at me as she said that, my heart quickened its tempo at thehidden inference in her words.
So it was settled. The four of us were to go as soon as school let outthe next summer. During the winter Mallory and I would build the spaceship in the old boat house down on the beach just a few blocks from thecampus.
* * * * *
It was really fun that winter, working late into the night putting thespace ship together. Our crowning achievement was retractible wings forsteering the ship in atmosphere. In space, of course, steering wouldhave to be done by small steering rockets. The main drive force, though,would be the missing link, as we had been calling it all winter.
Came the spring, as somebody in the English department might say, andthe ship was complete. During the spring months we used the last of ourjoint resources to stock it with all sorts of things, including seedsfor planting, in case we could not get back, or didn't want to comeback. Our final load, at the end of the school year, was books. Nothingbut books, and literally tons of them on everything from languages tophilosophy, from farming to the Bessemer Process.
Then we were ready. During the winter we had all read everything wecould get on interplanetary travel. Most of it was, of course, fiction,but each author had his own little idea that we could consider, so thatby the time we were ready to shove off we had a fairly complete grasp ofevery problem we could possibly encounter--or so we fondly hoped.
The ship was cigar-shaped, about eighty feet long and twenty feet indiameter. It had been built so that in space, away from gravity, wecould start it spinning with the small rockets and use centrifugal forceto keep us on the deck, which lined the shell. There were ballast tanksto keep one side down when in a gravity field, the water ballast beingtransferred to the center tube tank before the spin was started, totransfer the center of mass of the ship to the axis of rotation.
We started early in the evening, heading into the east to take advantageof the thousand-mile-an-hour speed of the earth's surface.
The missing link, the hunk of tellecarbon, was encased in a polishedbrass case in the exact center of gravity of the ship, strong girdersconnecting it to the shell. A sound-proof booth surrounded it in whichthe operator would not be distracted. A panel of signal lights wasimmediately below it where the operator could see it without taking hiseyes off the tellecarbon. When we took off I was in the driver's seat,Lahoma standing beside me. We had found that when she thought ofhamburger sandwiches the tellecarbon became antigravitational, just aswhen I thought of chickens being killed.
It took the combined power of our thoughts to lift the ship. As we foundout later, the ship rose sluggishly from the water and floatederratically upward, reaching the stratosphere in a little over an hour.By midnight we were over two thousand miles above the Earth's surfaceand rising more and more rapidly. By then both of us were exhausted andspelling each other off every ten minutes.
Jud was constantly determining our position and speed. At two o'clock inthe morning he relieved Lahoma and concentrated on the tellecarbon togive us more forward speed. By eight o'clock in the morning our speedand direction of travel were correct for escape from the Earth's gravityfield toward the planet Mars, and I crawled out of the control booth,practically a wreck.
* * * * *
From there on it was smooth sailing. We would coast along for two monthsbefore nearing Mars, and play with the gadgets we had brought along fortaking all sorts of measurements in outer space.
Space is very different than most writers picture it. Instead of beingdark it is intensely bright in all directions. It was fortunate that wehad movable dark shields on each porthole. By varying the number over aporthole we could block out most of the light and keep our objective inview.
Our most amazing discovery was that the temperature of interplanetaryspace is not absolutely zero. Our outside thermostat, carefully shieldedagainst all rays, that is, infrared, visible, and ultraviolet, and inthe vacuum of space, showed a constant temperature of minus one hundredand three degrees F. at all times in outer space. Jud explained thatthis was probably due to x-rays and cosmic rays which could penetratethe protective shield.
On the fifty-eighth day after leaving the earth, Jud, at the forwardtelescope, became suddenly excited. Dashing from the telescope to thechart table he began scribbling figures, ignoring our queries as to whatwas wrong. After fifteen minutes of figuring he straightened up, aworried frown on his face.
Muttering, "I was afraid of that," he brushed by us to the control boothand slammed the door behind him. A half-hour later he came out and againwent to the telescope. Glancing through it, he made adjustments and thenread them. Dashing back to the table he again scribbled some figures.When he had finished he stood there, his head bowed, staring at them.Then he looked up at our faces and said solemnly, "What I have beenfearing in the back of my mind has happened. The tellecarbon no longerresponds to mental suggestion. It has taken over control of the shipitself and, judging from our present course, we aren't going to ever getto Mars."
"What do you mean?" Lahoma asked.
"I mean," Jud answered slowly, "that at present we have a velocity greatenough to escape from the solar system and that it is increasing everymoment. Furthermore, a half-hour of concentration on the tellecarbon hasnot altered our course in the slightest. Wherever we are headed, it isnot any planet in this system!"
* * * * *
The effect of his words cannot be imagined by anyone not in the positionwe were in. We stood t
here stunned. Our little, spinning world of ironand steel kept on spinning. Our gravity, which we had become accustomedto, was different in many ways than flat gravity. For example, our floorwas curved, yet a dime dropped on it would roll in any direction alongthe curve just like it was a flat surface. But something near the centertube of the ship was practically weightless. So the center of gravity ofour bodies was not the same as its center of mass. This made itself feltin thousands of little things. Heart action, sense of balance, and evenin walking.
Picture, if you can, Jud standing several feet from me, his body formingan angle of about thirty degrees with mine, both of our bodies erect,our expressions serious. Picture also Lahoma and Mallory, their bodiesat still different angles. Throw in the absolute silence of that moment.Not a single sound except our breathing, not even a creak from the ship.If there had only been a cricket